Teen sues over Facebook bullying

A 14-year-old from Georgia is suing two peers for libel after they created a …

Fake Facebook page set up for Alex Boston with a profile photo distorted to make her look bloated.

Image courtesy of wired.com

A teenager in Georgia has decided to take things into her own hands after her school and police said they could do nothing about the classmates bullying her on Facebook. Fourteen-year-old Alex Boston and her parents are filing suit against two classmates and their parents for libel after the two classmates allegedly created a fake Facebook account in her name, using a photo of her that they distorted. The account was also used to post a racist video to YouTube that implied that Boston hated African-Americans, and to leave crude comments on the Facebook pages of other friends, suggesting she was sexually active and smoked marijuana. "All of these things were not true and they knew them to be not true," says Boston’s attorney Natalie Woodward. The activities exposed Boston to "hatred, contempt, and ridicule by her classmates and peers," according to the complaint, which accuses the teens of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and seeks punitive damages. The parents of the defendants are named in the suit because they paid for the Internet access that allowed their children to create the account and post the messages, and allegedly failed to supervise their activity. Boston decided to take this novel route after learning of the Facebook page a year ago and complaining about the behavior to school officials at Palmer Middle School in Kennesaw, Georgia. They told her there was nothing they could do about it because the activity occurred off campus. Police also said their hands were tied as well because there was no Georgia cyberbullying law they could apply to the situation. In Georgia, schools can punish students if they bully others at school, but the law governing this does not extend to text messages and social media sites. Georgia does not have a law that covers off-campus harassment, though seven other states do have laws that cover this. Police in Georgia advised Boston and her parents to file a complaint with Facebook, requesting that the fake account be taken down. But after several requests to Facebook failed, Boston and her family decided to sue the teens allegedly responsible for the account. Facebook only deleted the account about a week ago after the lawsuit was filed and a story about it aired over the weekend on CNN, Woodward said. Woodward said there had been no dispute between the teens prior to the bullying. "She just considers herself a normal, average seventh-grader," Woodward said. "She had never been targeted or had something like this happen before." The alleged teen offenders told school officials that they just didn’t like Boston, according to Woodward. "They said ‘she followed us around school too much.’ There was no real explanation, as is so often the case with these activities. Why kids do things to other kids is a mystery, and is for sure in this case." Cyberbullying garnered worldwide attention in 2007 after an adult named Lori Drew was accused of creating a fake Myspace account with her teen daughter and another girl that was used to bully another teenage girl who later committed suicide. Prosecutors later charged Drew under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for violating Myspace’s terms of service in creating the fake account. Drew was later convicted by a jury on misdemeanor charges, but the conviction was overturned by a judge. The case prompted new cyberbullying laws to be passed in states across the nation. In 2009, in the wake of the Drew case, a Missouri ninth-grader was arrested for creating a website that disparaged another teen.

Boston decided to take this novel route after learning of the Facebook page a year ago and complaining about the behavior to school officials at Palmer Middle School in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Novel!? Um, this is exactly what libel/slander law is specifically for, there's nothing novel, just a proper application of existing law. The officials are right, they shouldn't be dealing with off-campus stuff. In fact it's actually nice that for once we have some school officials who know their proper scope, because it seems more common that school officials want to go after students for stuff they do off campus when they shouldn't. It's not a criminal matter either, it's civil damages due to false speech between private individuals, so no reason the police should be involved unless it escalated to physical threats or some other criminal matter.

These people wrote a bunch of lies about a private citizen, knowing they were lies, with a specific attempt to cause harm, and caused damage. About as open and shut a libel case as it gets, take them to court. That's part of what the courts are for.

I guess you sort of HAVE to name the students who bullied, but the case should begin and end with the parents. Yes, I know we sometimes give parents too much credit in how their kids turn out (WAY TOO MUCH, if you ask me), but given the circumstance in THIS case - have at them!

So, the teachers couldn't say anything to their students about such fundamentals values as friendship and respect?

Sure, they could say something. But in turn the students can go ahead and ignore them. And while the teachers or school officials can certainly give general guidelines for behavior on campus, it's dangerous to give them any power into student's private lives. We have laws to handle general behavior in society.

The alleged teen offenders told school officials that they just didn’t like Boston, according to Woodward. "They said ‘she followed us around school too much.’ There was no real explanation, as is so often the case with these activities. Why kids do things to other kids is a mystery, and is for sure in this case."

Ooh, ooh, can I try? Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that kids are basically encouraged to explore the world, in this case anonymously and with the sum total of human technological achievement, with no concept of responsibility and a shield from any legal and social repercussions?

I'm all for this suit, but can't we just expand existing libel laws, possibly through legislation and case law, rather than create these vague cyber-bullying statutes?

That's assuming that libel laws even *need* to be expanded. This has to be the most slam dunk case of libel I've ever heard of, complete with clear malicious intent. All I'd think should be changed is that the burden of proof ought to be lowered when the target is a juvenile.

I think the parents filed the suit too quickly. I didn't read anything in the article about the parents of the victim talking to the parents of those who did the bullying. IF this was my daughter (the victim), I'd figure out who these classmates are and set up a quick meeting with their parents to let them know what was going on between their kids and mine. Most of the Southerners I know don't tolerate bullshit like this from their kids and will whoop some ass if they need and solve the problem without legal help. If the parents seemed like they didn't care, then I'd call out for legal help and name the parents in it too.

If my kid was doing the bullying and I didn't know until I was named in a suit, I'd be upset. First I'd be upset at my kid, because I know I would have taught them never to do anything that hurts others. And two, because this could have been taken care of without legal help.

This is how our legal system is supposed to work. If an individual or company defames you have standing to sue. I hope she wins and is a warning to others. The school and police rightly should never have been involved. Bullying is not criminal and it did not happen at school, which is the only place a school district should prevent bullying.

So, the teachers couldn't say anything to their students about such fundamentals values as friendship and respect?

It is not, and never has been the duty of schools to teach 'friendship and respect'. Such ideas are liberal/socialist ideology which are destroying society. It is the place of the parent to instill values in their children they find appropriate. Note that MY values might not be the same as YOURS. That said, society tends to work best a baseline standard in which we might have opposing viewpoints but I don't beat you to death in the street over them.

I don't see what's novel about this. It's just the way things should work and an example of why we don't need extra laws.

It may also be an example of why parents should be civilly and potentially criminally liable for what their kids do. (Especially in the 4 - 14 age range.)

I fail to see any reason why a parent should ever be held criminally responsible for what their kids do. What? Your kid got in with a bad bunch and vandalized a school? Well guess what! Not only do you get to pay to clean it up, you also get to spend 6 months in jail! What, your a single parent and have a job and other kids to feed? Don't worry, the department of human services will put them in a nice foster home while you do your time!

I think the parents filed the suit too quickly. I didn't read anything in the article about the parents of the victim talking to the parents of those who did the bullying. IF this was my daughter (the victim), I'd figure out who these classmates are and set up a quick meeting with their parents to let them know what was going on between their kids and mine. Most of the Southerners I know don't tolerate bullshit like this from their kids and will whoop some ass if they need and solve the problem without legal help. If the parents seemed like they didn't care, then I'd call out for legal help and name the parents in it too.

If my kid was doing the bullying and I didn't know until I was named in a suit, I'd be upset. First I'd be upset at my kid, because I know I would have taught them never to do anything that hurts others. And two, because this could have been taken care of without legal help.

I agree. If we adults fail to install to our children the most basic and universal rules of civility, how long would it be before our whole society collapse?

OMFG. People can be so sensitive in that they CHOOSE to be offended by something they CHOOSE to look at.

Don't like the material? DON'T LOOK AT IT!

These kids were creating materials that were funny, as a way to mock someone else. I doubt that any of them were actually thinking it would be used to prevent her from getting a job. If I created similar materials to make fun of Pamela Anderson, should I be prosecuted for making her look fat? Can my parody not insinuate that she got Hep C from doing Heroin instead of getting a tattoo?

She has every right to ignore what these students created. The right to offend is greater than the right not to be offended. Get over it. People will hate you. Just surround yourself with those who you feel you deserve, and learn from those who you feel you don't.

It is not, and never has been the duty of schools to teach 'friendship and respect'. Such ideas are liberal/socialist ideology which are destroying society. It is the place of the parent to instill values in their children they find appropriate. Note that MY values might not be the same as YOURS. That said, society tends to work best a baseline standard in which we might have opposing viewpoints but I don't beat you to death in the street over them.

OMFG. People can be so sensitive in that they CHOOSE to be offended by something they CHOOSE to look at.

Don't like the material? DON'T LOOK AT IT!

These kids were creating materials that were funny, as a way to mock someone else. I doubt that any of them were actually thinking it would be used to prevent her from getting a job. If I created similar materials to make fun of Pamela Anderson, should I be prosecuted for making her look fat? Can my parody not insinuate that she got Hep C from doing Heroin instead of getting a tattoo?

She has every right to ignore what these students created. The right to offend is greater than the right not to be offended. Get over it. People will hate you. Just surround yourself with those who you feel you deserve, and learn from those who you feel you don't.

Except that this wan't a parody. They specifically hid and created a page pretending to be her with the express purpose of causing her harm - by their own admission to school officials. This is precisely the purpose of libel laws. Good for her, I hope they force those kids and their families into a homeless shelter. Maybe that will send a message to the parents to monitor thier kids and instill basic values into them.

These people wrote a bunch of lies about a private citizen, knowing they were lies, with a specific attempt to cause harm, and caused damage.

What damage was caused? Emotional damage that the student caused on herself after viewing the offensive images? The other kids are not responsible for the way she chooses to react to a negative situation; they don't control her emotions.

While libel is illegal, parodies are not. I'm not quite sure why this would rise to the level of libel, because they were not attempting to prevent her from getting a job or to discredit her in the newspapers. From what I see, the students got creative in their hatred and decided to make a pseudo-lifestyle that they could mock. Since they didn't like the girl for following them, they basically invented new character flaws to make her that much more repulsive ... to themselves.

I fail to see how she was damaged by this except by the amount she CHOOSES to be damaged.

I think the parents filed the suit too quickly. I didn't read anything in the article about the parents of the victim talking to the parents of those who did the bullying. IF this was my daughter (the victim), I'd figure out who these classmates are and set up a quick meeting with their parents to let them know what was going on between their kids and mine. Most of the Southerners I know don't tolerate bullshit like this from their kids and will whoop some ass if they need and solve the problem without legal help. If the parents seemed like they didn't care, then I'd call out for legal help and name the parents in it too.

If my kid was doing the bullying and I didn't know until I was named in a suit, I'd be upset. First I'd be upset at my kid, because I know I would have taught them never to do anything that hurts others. And two, because this could have been taken care of without legal help.

I heard about this just a few days ago on the Bert Show and apparently Boston's parents talked to the offenders' parents and they were like "Oh. I'm so sorry, I'll try to do something about it." Well... they didn't. The rest of the details, Ars has it down except for the fact they tried to take every course of action for more than six months before finally having to resort to legal action.

They specifically hid and created a page pretending to be her with the express purpose of causing her harm - by their own admission to school officials. This is precisely the purpose of libel laws. Good for her, I hope they force those kids and their families into a homeless shelter. Maybe that will send a message to the parents to monitor thier kids and instill basic values into them.

It is not, and never has been the duty of schools to teach 'friendship and respect'. Such ideas are liberal/socialist ideology which are destroying society. It is the place of the parent to instill values in their children they find appropriate. Note that MY values might not be the same as YOURS. That said, society tends to work best a baseline standard in which we might have opposing viewpoints but I don't beat you to death in the street over them.

So, the teachers couldn't say anything to their students about such fundamentals values as friendship and respect?

It is not, and never has been the duty of schools to teach 'friendship and respect'. Such ideas are liberal/socialist ideology which are destroying society. It is the place of the parent to instill values in their children they find appropriate. Note that MY values might not be the same as YOURS. That said, society tends to work best a baseline standard in which we might have opposing viewpoints but I don't beat you to death in the street over them.

Indeed parents have the most important part in instilling values to the children. But children do not live in a bubble—they live in society and learn rules and values from everyone, including the teachers (more often by copying the behavior of their seniors and their peers).

To my understanding, school teaching values (mostly by example) is as old as humanity. From classical times, it was widely understood that right after the parents, teachers were the second most important factor in shaping a child's behavior.

I think the parents filed the suit too quickly. I didn't read anything in the article about the parents of the victim talking to the parents of those who did the bullying. IF this was my daughter (the victim), I'd figure out who these classmates are and set up a quick meeting with their parents to let them know what was going on between their kids and mine. Most of the Southerners I know don't tolerate bullshit like this from their kids and will whoop some ass if they need and solve the problem without legal help. If the parents seemed like they didn't care, then I'd call out for legal help and name the parents in it too.

If my kid was doing the bullying and I didn't know until I was named in a suit, I'd be upset. First I'd be upset at my kid, because I know I would have taught them never to do anything that hurts others. And two, because this could have been taken care of without legal help.

I agree. If we adults fail to install to our children the most basic and universal rules of civility, how long would it be before our whole society collapse?

Why can't people lear to read? This girl has been trying to get this page taken down for OVER A YEAR. Too quickly? I think she showed amazing restraint. She went to school officials, she went to the police - I'm sure the parents of these kids who were doing this were spoken to on multiple occasions about this, and they did NOTHING to stop it.

I hope the teen win and devastate those families financially. Maybe that will send a message that you need to monitor your kids and that you indeed can be financially liable since you are providing them with the financial means to launch these ridiculous libelous attacks.

So, the teachers couldn't say anything to their students about such fundamentals values as friendship and respect?

[typical american parent] How dare you teach my kids values? You're not their parents! [/typical parent]

So I imagine you'd be perfectly happy with your kid learning values from the George W Bush Elementary school.

If you're not happy with the schools values... send the kids to another school. I went to a catholic school to be taught catholic values because my parents wanted it that way... same applies here. if a parent (hopefully a PTA member in the first place) is unhappy about the direction of the values/education taught then that place isn't for their child. move/send your child elsewhere to a place where your beliefs, ideas are similar. Or, you know.... get involved... and take an active roll in the process.

I don't see what's novel about this. It's just the way things should work and an example of why we don't need extra laws.

It may also be an example of why parents should be civilly and potentially criminally liable for what their kids do. (Especially in the 4 - 14 age range.)

I fail to see any reason why a parent should ever be held criminally responsible for what their kids do. What? Your kid got in with a bad bunch and vandalized a school? Well guess what! Not only do you get to pay to clean it up, you also get to spend 6 months in jail! What, your a single parent and have a job and other kids to feed? Don't worry, the department of human services will put them in a nice foster home while you do your time!

Because when someone becomes a parent, they're accepting responsibility for what their child does, until the child becomes an adult.

And parents can't go to jail for their kid's activities (unless the parent is directly involved, in which case it's not for the kid's activities), just fines, so stop with the scare mongering.

vampur9 wrote:

OMFG. People can be so sensitive in that they CHOOSE to be offended by something they CHOOSE to look at.

People have a right not to be publicly defamed. Your statement is totally asinine.

Yhbv24 wrote:

Slightly off-topic, but are you joking?

Probably not. The point of school _isn't_ to instill values, just information. That's the central point of the creationism-vs-evolution debate: creationism is based on a value system with no scientific (e.g. factual) support, evolution is based on scientific facts.

As for the rest of it, that's a different matter for debate, but I would agree that public schools are not supposed to teach, nor are the correct venue, for teaching values and morals. Private schools are different, because the parents often choose them for their values and morals; I went to a private, Episcopalian school because my parents thought it was better both educationally and morally and a public school. Despite being somewhere on the agnostic-to-atheist end of the religious spectrum, I actually agree.

I think the parents filed the suit too quickly. I didn't read anything in the article about the parents of the victim talking to the parents of those who did the bullying. IF this was my daughter (the victim), I'd figure out who these classmates are and set up a quick meeting with their parents to let them know what was going on between their kids and mine. Most of the Southerners I know don't tolerate bullshit like this from their kids and will whoop some ass if they need and solve the problem without legal help. If the parents seemed like they didn't care, then I'd call out for legal help and name the parents in it too.

If my kid was doing the bullying and I didn't know until I was named in a suit, I'd be upset. First I'd be upset at my kid, because I know I would have taught them never to do anything that hurts others. And two, because this could have been taken care of without legal help.

I heard about this just a few days ago on the Bert Show and apparently Boston's parents talked to the offenders' parents and they were like "Oh. I'm so sorry, I'll try to do something about it." Well... they didn't. The rest of the details, Ars has it down except for the fact they tried to take every course of action for more than six months before finally having to resort to legal action.

A very important detail indeed; I wish Ars had included it in the article.

It is the place of the parent to instill values in their children they find appropriate.

Parents have authority over their children. By sending them to a school, they impart part of their authority to that school and thus to the teachers. This would mean that parents need to partner with the school and teachers. Parents who know their kids teachers will be able to handle, in most cases, divergent views and bad modeling. My wife's high school chemistry teacher was mostly drunk when he taught class. She is a teacher and would never teach drunk. Obviously, not an apple-for-apple comparison, but it was a case where her parents involved themselves in her education to help put things into perspective.

In this case, they tried, the school said it wasn't their purview and the parents moved on.

It is not, and never has been the duty of schools to teach 'friendship and respect'. Such ideas are liberal/socialist ideology which are destroying society. It is the place of the parent to instill values in their children they find appropriate. Note that MY values might not be the same as YOURS. That said, society tends to work best a baseline standard in which we might have opposing viewpoints but I don't beat you to death in the street over them.

Slightly off-topic, but are you joking?

Why exactly would I be joking? It is not the duty of schools to instill 'values' in your children. That is the duty of parents. This isn't even debatable.

I fail to see how she was damaged by this except by the amount she CHOOSES to be damaged.

That's because you CHOOSE to not understand what bullying is.

Hardly. I went through my high-school as the only openly gay student. I had all kinds of things thrown at me, from pickles to pejoratives. I learned fairly quickly that words hurt, but that I was solely the one responsible for allowing them to hurt me.

"But after several requests to Facebook failed, Boston and her family decided to sue the teens allegedly responsible for the account. Facebook only deleted the account about a week ago after the lawsuit was filed and a story about it aired over the weekend on CNN, Woodward said."

Why does it always take media attention to get a frakkin' company to do anything? Facebook took forever to "fix" privacy. If this didn't air, it'd be business as usual for Zuckerberg to ignore it.

Why exactly would I be joking? It is not the duty of schools to instill 'values' in your children. That is the duty of parents. This isn't even debatable.

Friendship and respect are liberal socialist ideologies which are destroying societies? Well, parents often don't teach their children morals or values, and by sending their children to schools, they put a certain amount of responsibility on the schools to do it.

When children are put into groups to solve problems, that teaches teamwork, cooperation, etc. When they play team sports that teaches sportsmanship, strategy, etc. It's not the primary objective of a school, but those values are certainly values that are taught.

Hardly. I went through my high-school as the only openly gay student. I had all kinds of things thrown at me, from pickles to pejoratives. I learned fairly quickly that words hurt, but that I was the one responsible for allowing them to hurt me.

Just because you "chose" not to get hurt, doesn't mean other people have that ability. It sounds like you're blaming the victim.

<snip> What? Your kid got in with a bad bunch and vandalized a school? Well guess what! Not only do you get to pay to clean it up, you also get to spend 6 months in jail! What, your a single parent and have a job and other kids to feed? Don't worry, the department of human services will put them in a nice foster home while you do your time!

^--THAT

One has to look at the consequences of legislation and litigation holistically. A single mother working full time does not have time to supervise her children's activities on the Internet. If she DIDN'T provide Internet access for her kids, they'd be at a huge disadvantage! She's reliant on the public sector to teach her children morality.

On top of that, when I was 14, I was able to boot to a Linux live CD I rolled myself, before there were live CDs. There was nothing my parents could have done to stop me from getting in to exactly what I decided I was going to get in to on the Internet. However, I was homeschooled and taught to examine the consequences of my actions in great detail - and taught to see how other people's actions affected me.

So this lawsuit holding parents liable for cyberbullying sets a precedent where facilitators of bullying schools, social networking sites, etc are absolved of the responsibility of policing their networks.

It is similar to a store with security personnel monitoring cameras ignoring a customer being mugged - because the muggers aren't harming store property.

And what we're going to do - instead of holding the company with the negligent security guards ignoring customer-on-customer violence because it isn't customer-on-store - is hold the driver waiting out in the car, who thinks the mugger is just going in real quick to get milk, liable for the mugging.